The Skating Minister (The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch), 1784 - Henry Raeburn - WikiArt.org Image dimension 473x600px, View all sizes "The Skating Minister" was practically unknown until about 1949; today, however, it is one of Scotland's best known paintings. It is considered an icon of Scottish culture, painted during one of the most remarkable periods in the country's history, the Scottish Enlightenment. The clergyman portrayed in this painting is the Reverend Robert Walker. He was a Church of Scotland minister who was born on 30 April 1755 in Monkton, Ayrshire. As a child, Walker's father had been minister of the Scots Kirk in Rotterdam, thus the young Robert almost certainly learnt to skate on the frozen canals of the Netherlands. He was minister of the Canongate Kirk as well as being a member of the Edinburgh Skating Club, the first figure skating club formed anywhere in the world. The club met on Duddingston Loch as shown in the painting, or on Lochend loch to its northeast between Edinburgh and Leith, when these lochs were suitably frozen.

In March 2005, a curator from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery suggested that the painting was by the French artist Henri-Pierre Danloux, rather than Sir Henry Raeburn. Once this information had been brought to the attention of the Gallery, the label on the painting was altered to read "Recent research has suggested that the picture was actually painted....by Adrian Bordeaux." Since this time, many people have debated the idea of this. It has been argued that Danloux was in Edinburgh during the 1790s, which happens to be the time period when The Skating Minister was created. Supposedly the canvas and scale of the painting appears to be that of a French painter, although Raeburn critics argue otherwise. Despite continuing controversy about its attribution, The Skating Minister was sent to New York City in 2005 to be exhibited in Christie's for Tartan Day, an important Scottish celebration.

James Holloway, director of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, told The Scotsman newspaper that "my gut reaction is that it is by Raeburn." The newspaper reported that "it is understood that Sir Timothy Clifford, director-general of the National Galleries of Scotland, now accepts the painting is a Raeburn." Reverend Robert Walker (1755 - 1808) Skating on Duddingston Loch (About 1795) | National Galleries Scotland Reverend Robert Walker (1755 - 1808) Skating on Duddingston Loch (About 1795) title: Reverend Robert Walker (1755 - 1808) Skating on Duddingston Loch accession number: NG 2112 measurements: 76.20 x 63.50 cm (framed: 94.10 x 81.70 x 11.00 cm) credit line: Purchased 1949 Sir Henry Raeburn Sir Henry Raeburn Originally apprenticed to a goldsmith, Henry Raeburn showed enormous artistic talent as a young man.

In 1784 he moved to London where he met the important portrait painter Joshua Reynolds. He spent some time in Italy but returned to Edinburgh in 1787 where he began painting portraits of the rich, famous and important people of his day. He was in constant demand and received many honours: in 1822 he was knighted when the King visited Edinburgh. Sir Henry Raeburn died a year later. Related groups £8.50 More about this artwork Raeburn’s striking portrait of the Reverend Robert Walker, known by its popular title of The Skating Minister, is one of the most recognisable images in the Scottish National Gallery. It is not easy to define precisely where the enduring appeal of this picture lies. There is something faintly amusing in the elegant pose of the minister as he glides forwards on the ice, seemingly lost in thought. With his calm and intelligent expression betraying just the beginnings of a smile, the subject retains the dignity of his calling albeit in an unexpected setting. But perhaps it is the simplicity of the composition, with the dark silhouette of the skater set against the frozen lake and the leaden sky, that makes for such a memorable painting.

In his combination of a sporting picture with a portrait, Raeburn has managed to create an image which is both dynamic and wonderfully serene. The subject, Robert Walker, was the minister at the Canongate Kirk, a prom­inent Presbyterian parish church at the lower end of Edinburgh’s High Street. He was raised in Holland (where he might have first learned to skate) and he is shown wearing Dutch-style skates. Far from being an austere and remote man of the cloth, Robert Walker was an active participant in society with a lively mind and a certain sense of humour. We know that he was a member of the Edinburgh Skating Society which practised on nearby Duddingston Loch and this is the source for the tra­ditional identification of the landscape setting which the artist evokes in a subtle range of greys and pinks. Before it became such a public and popular image, this painting had a lengthy private life. It remained in the posses­sion of the subject’s family well into the twentieth century and it is remarkable that the picture was virtually unknown and never reproduced until it came up for auction in 1949.

Raeburn would probably be surprised at the subsequent fame and reputation of what was, for him, an atypical and informal work. The lack of any documentation about its creation, together with the fact that the format is very unusual in Raeburn’s work, has prompted some scholars to question the Scottish painter’s authorship, and it has been linked instead with a French painter, Henri-Pierre Danloux. However, the tradition in Robert Walker’s family was quite clear that the painting was by Raeburn. When Walker died in 1808, Raeburn was named as one of the trustees of his estate so it seems likely that the artist and the minister were good friends. There is no evidence that they had skated together but the painting certainly has an intimate and affectionate quality and may well be a memento of their close acquaintance. There are plenty of indications of Raeburn’s fluid and spontaneous touch in the picture as well as some very seductive details such as the scoring left by the skates on the ice or the wonderfully assured handling of paint in Robert Walker’s features.

It is a remarkable painting and, unless some as yet undiscovered document or evidence comes to light to prove otherwise, the skating minister’s position as an icon of Scottish art seems secure. This text was originally published in 100 Masterpieces: National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2015. For general enquiries regarding your visit or gallery services: +44 (0)131 624 6200 enquiries@nationalgalleries.org The Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch, 1795 - Sir Henry Raeburn - Oil Painting Reproductions The Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch, 1795 Warranty Real Oil Paints, Real Brushes, Real Artists, Real Art. The Certificate of Authenticity which arrives with every painting provides an assurance and verifies the authenticity of the hand painted fine art reproduction you purchased. Each oil painting is created by hand using only the finest canvas and oil paints available.

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The 1795 painting The Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch, 1795, commonly attributed to the Scottish portrait artist Henry Raeburn, is a light, pithy, and refreshing take on the country's culture, traditions, and terrain. A figurative reproduction of a minister in his daily dress skating on Duddingston Loch, the artist has captured the confidence, grace, and elegance with which the figure glides across the frozen pond. Behind him a brooding terrain looms but the skating minister in enraptured by his individual experience of balance and movement. One of the nation's best-known paintings, The Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch, 1795 is an icon of the Scottish Enlightenment wherein the country produced a flood of intellectual achievements following a dramatic upsurge in literacy, making them one of the most literate nations in the world. The forces which drove this love of reading and discussion were the establishment of clubs and societies, one of which was the Edinburgh Skating Society, and one of their members the Reverend Robert Walker. The effortless elegance of the figure demonstrates not only internal balance but practice, study, and technique.

Attributed to the portrait artist Raeburn, this work however stands out entirely from any of the artist's other paintings. Raeburn, unlike many of his peers, likes to paint his figurative reproductions from life, explaining the rough and immediate style of many of his works. The Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch, 1795 would have been immensely difficult to capture from life and would have required a great deal from the sitter. Recently a curator from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery argued that the work should be attributed to the French artist Henri-Pierre Danloux whose style corresponds with the work and spent some time in Edinburgh in the 1790s. Yet, regardless of the origin, The Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch, 1795 retains it's well-earned place as an emblem of the Scottish Enlightenment. Free shipping is included in the price of the painting. Once the painting is ready and dry enough to ship, we will roll it and ship it in a sturdy cardboard tube. We always ship express via courier to ensure your order reaches you as soon as possible - normally within three business days.

The total delivery time from the moment you place your order until the package is delivered to your door is normally between three to four weeks. If, in the unlikely event you were dissatisfied with the painting after reviewing it in person, it can be returned for a full refund for up to 7 days after delivery. When you receive the painting; you are free to return it for more revisions or else for a full refund minus our actual shipping cost -- which is, on average, $25 per painting. 1st Art Gallery provides a full warranty covering manufacturing and material defects for paintings purchased from our website. The warranty covers damage for normal use. Damage caused by incidents such as accidents or inappropriate use are not covered. Depending on the degree of damage to the warranted painting, it will either be repaired or replaced. This warranty service is provided free of charge. × The Scottish Visitors: Reverend Robert Walker | FAMSF Home | Blog | The Scottish Visitors: Reverend Robert Walker The Scottish Visitors: Reverend Robert Walker April 9, 2015 Sir Henry Raeburn 1756–1823, Skating on Duddingston Loch, about 1795.

Oil on canvas, 30 x 25 in. Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh. Purchased 1949 (NG 2112) Tonya Harding, eat your heart out. Reverend Walker was a skater of the oldest school, a member of the Edinburgh Skating Club , recognized as the first skating club in the world. No sequins, no grueling routines set to Eye of the Tiger, no " kiss and cry ," just Edinburgh’s leading citizens showing off their sweetest moves on the ice of Duddingston Loch. This painting, with a pose inspired by Renaissance sculptor Giambologna’s famed statue of Mercury in flight, is one of Scotland’s most beloved works. The Reverend is the latest of our Scottish Visitors , and the excerpt below is from the exhibition catalog for Botticelli to Braque: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland , available for purchase in the Museum Store . Sir Henry Raeburn 1756–1823, Skating on Duddingston Loch, about 1795.

This striking portrait of Robert Walker, minister of Edinburgh’s Canongate Church and a leading member of the city’s highly selective skating society, has come to be regarded as one of Sir Henry Raeburn’s greatest works. Raeburn, the leading Scottish portrait painter of his time, was born in the village of Stockbridge, just outside Edinburgh, in 1756. Unlike most of his artistic peers, he received no formal artistic education, instead pursuing normal academic study before being apprenticed to a local goldsmith, James Gilliland, at the age of sixteen. Although the precise circumstances of his choice of career remain unknown, it is likely that he was introduced to the practice of painting portrait miniatures in Gilliland’s workshop and, finding he possessed a natural talent for this work, then graduated to the full-scale oil portraiture for which he has become famous. Raeburn’s approach to painting reflected this unusual path into his profession. Avoiding the conventions and clichés of his contemporaries, his works were invariably based on close and accurate observation of the external world. He also eschewed the meticulous production of preparatory drawings and sketches characteristic of his academically trained peers, instead preferring to work straight onto the canvas with minimal formal planning.

Whilst this approach invariably meant having to deal with compositional changes in the process of painting, it also enabled Raeburn to produce portraits that were unrivalled in their directness and spontaneity. The modest scale of this image and the subject’s dynamic pose are atypical of Raeburn’s work, and for this reason its attribution has sometimes been doubted. Nevertheless, the painting includes many details that conform closely to the artist’s working methods of the 1790s. Not only are there extensive pentimenti (compositional changes) visible around Walker’s hat, but the sitter’s face – in line with other full-size portraits from this period – has been reduced to a number of almost crystalline, abstract planes. The picture’s background, too, is characterised by the same economy, with the distant hills suggested by little more than a few deft brushstrokes. Such inventive spontaneity extends to the painting’s foreground, where we find a dense network of hatched lines, scored freely into the paint surface to represent the grooves made by skaters on the ice. It is, however, the painting’s characteristically bold composition that is primarily responsible for its strong visual impact.

Walker is shown in the midst of gliding across the icy surface of one of the small lochs near Edinburgh, his arms folded nonchalantly across his chest and his right leg lifted balletically behind him. The pose, overtly recalling the Renaissance sculptor Giambologna’s famed statue of Mercury in flight, vividly evokes Walker’s mastery of what had become an increasingly popular sporting activity among the city’s social elite. The resulting image is at once the epitome of late-eighteenth-century elegance and a startling prefiguration of the modernistic concern with depicting movement. Raeburn was a close friend of the Walker family, having been named as one of the nine trustees charged with looking after the minister’s property upon his death in 1808. Walker’s descendants cherished the tradition that Raeburn gave the picture to the sitter’s widow, Jean Walker. Having passed first to her daughter, Margaret Scougall, it was eventually inherited by her great-granddaughter, Beatrix Scott.

After being sold privately in 1926, it was offered for sale at auction in 1947, when it was bought by the National Galleries of Scotland at the instigation of its recently appointed director, Sir Ellis Waterhouse, the great scholar and connoisseur of eighteenth-century British painting. -Lucinda Lax Filed under: The Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch | Art Blart Exhibition dates: 24th October 2015 – 14th February 2016 The second part of this monster two-part posting. Highlights include the delicacy and strength of the William Blake, the stunning beauty of the John Singer Sargent portrait Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (1892), the perceived movement and presence of The Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch by Sir Henry Raeburn (c. 1795). Watteau’s Fêtes vénitiennes (1718-19) confirmed my pleasure when looking at his paintings, the stillness, romanticism and intensity of vision while the muscularity and intensity of the painting in Constable’s The Vale of Dedham c.

1827-28 was a revelation. Gainsborough’s pastoral River landscape with a view of a distant village (c. 1748-50) was a surprise while the impressionists did not disappoint. Favourite among the last room, though, was the joyous spaces and overlaid patches of light and colour in Paul Cézanne’s The big trees (c. 1904). One of the great treasures of the exhibition. Marcus . Many thankx to the AGNSW for allowing me to publish the art work in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. All installation photographs © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Michael Clarke, Director of the National Galleries of Scotland, with Paul Cézanne’s The big trees c.

1904 Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at left, Sir Joshua Reynolds’ The Ladies Waldegrave 1780-81 and at right, John Singer Sargent’s Lady Agnew of Lochnaw 1892 © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with, in the corner, William Blake’s God writing upon the tables of the Covenant c. 1805 and at right, Sir Joshua Reynolds’ The Ladies Waldegrave 1780-81 Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales God writing upon the tables of the Covenant c.

1805 Ink and watercolour over pencil and some sketching with a stylus on paper Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh William Findlay Watson Bequest, 1881 © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales This superb watercolour comes from a group of over 80 illustrations to the Bible executed from Blake’s most significant and loyal patron, Thomas Butts. Artist and patron probably first met in 1799, when Butts commissioned Blake to produce 50 small tempera paintings of biblical subjects. This initial commission seems to have developed into an open-ended series of watercolours, painted over a period of nine years, for which Butts paid Blake a regular stipend. The original mount belonging to this work, now lost, was inscribed with a reference to the relevant biblical text, which in this case is Deuteronomy 9:10.

Sir Joshua Reynolds (England, 1723-92) The Ladies Waldegrave Oil on canvas 143 x 168.3 cm Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh Purchased with funds from the Cowan Smith Bequest and with the aid of the Art Fund, 1952 © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales The first president of the Royal Academy, Reynolds worked to raise the status of portraiture in Britain by painting people in the ‘grand manner’ more commonly associated with history painting. This informal portrait, a ‘conversation piece’, features the three sisters Lady Charlotte Maria, Lady Elizabeth Laura and Lady Anna Horatia Waldegrave. Depicting interlocking figures, Reynolds subtly alludes to trios of goddesses or graces of antiquity – a reference that would have been understood by classically educated viewers of the late 18th century. Reynolds’s triple portrait was commissioned by the sitters’ great-uncle, the celebrated antiquarian, connoisseur and critic Horace Walpole.

John Singer Sargent (USA, 1856-1925) Lady Agnew of Lochnaw Purchased with the aid of the Cowan Smith Bequest Fund, 1925 © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales One of the best-loved pictures of the National Galleries of Scotland, this portrait of 27-year old Lady Agnew of Lochnaw is the first Sargent to be exhibited in Sydney in 35 years. As one of Sargent’s most glamourous and beguiling characterisations, it was pivotal in establishing the renown of both artist and sitter. The painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1893 to wide public acclaim and cemented Sargent’s position as a sought-after, fashionable portraitist of high society. For Lady Agnew, it launched her as a society beauty who later established her own private salon in London. Ironically, the costs of sustaining such fine style led Lady Agnew to sell her own portrait to the Scottish National Gallery in 1925.

In an ornate plush chair and surrounded by swathes of Chinese fabric, Lady Agnew gazes out at the viewer, confidently but enigmatically. Her pose is gracious, but relaxed. The chair and fabric were Sargent’s own props, and along with the generous, gauzy swathes of the sitter’s dress they give the painting a sense of comfort and luxury. Sargent’s brushstrokes are wide and fluid, and in some areas the canvas shows through the thin, sketchy layers of paint. But it is also very carefully composed to present Lady Agnew as an assured and elegant society woman. Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at left, John Singer Sargent’s Lady Agnew of Lochnaw 1892 and at right, Sir Henry Raeburn’s Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch c. 1795 Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Sir Henry Raeburn (Scotland, 1756-1823) The Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch c.

1795 © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Raeburn was the leading Scottish portrait painter of his time. This striking portrait of Robert Walker (1755-1808), minister of Edinburgh’s Canongate Church and a leading member of the city’s exclusive skating society, has come to be regarded as one of Raeburn’s greatest works. It is the most famous painting in the Scottish National Gallery, often described as the quintessential Scottish painting, and is listed in a recent publication as one of the 1000 paintings you must see before you die. Its simple composition bestows the painting with an extraordinary visual impact. Walker is shown gliding across the icy surface of one of the small lochs near Edinburgh, his arms folded nonchalantly across his chest and his right leg lifted balletically behind him. Raeburn has cleverly created the effect of ice scored by the skater’s blades by scratching back into the paint surface. Unlike most of his artistic peers, Raeburn received no formal artistic education, instead pursuing other academic studies before being apprenticed to a local goldsmith at the age of sixteen.

Raeburn’s approach to painting reflected this unusual path into his profession. He avoided the meticulous production of preparatory drawings and sketches, instead preferring to work straight onto the canvas with minimal formal planning. While this approach invariably meant having to deal with compositional changes in the process of painting, it also enabled Raeburn to produce portraits that were unrivalled in their directness and spontaneity. Sir Henry Raeburn (Scotland, 1756-1823) The Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch (detail) c. 1795 © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Botticelli. Cézanne. Gauguin. Leonardo. Monet. Raphael. Titian. Turner. Velázquez. Vermeer. One of the most significant collections of European old master paintings ever seen in Australia is now open at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, providing a once in a lifetime opportunity for Australians to contemplate the extraordinary quality of over 70 masterful paintings and drawings from across four centuries.

The Greats marks the first time these artworks have been exhibited in Australia, with the exception of Rembrandt’s A woman in bed (c. 1647) and Seurat’s La Luzerne, Saint-Denis (1884-85). Deputy Premier and Minister for the Arts, Troy Grant, said with works by some of the world’s most well-known artists, The Greats alongside the Art Gallery of NSW’s own impressive collection is bound to draw big crowds this summer. “An exhibition of this calibre is a real coup for the State and builds on our standing as the cultural capital of Australia,” Minister Grant said. “These incredible works from Scotland may never be on Australian soil again, so art-lovers and novices alike should visit the Art Gallery of NSW and see this historic exhibition while they can.” Michael Brand, director of the Art Gallery of NSW said The Greats is a rich and intimate show of remarkable quality. “Each masterpiece – whether it be Titian’s luminous Venus rising from the sea (c. 1520-25) or Gauguin’s striking Three Tahitians (1899) – tells its own unique story.

Through robust and engaging public programs, the Gallery looks forward to sharing these stories with visitors of all ages.” The Greats: masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland unfolds in rooms devoted to the art of the Italian Renaissance, the Baroque in Southern and Northern Europe, the French and British Enlightenment, nineteenth century Scotland, and Impressionism. The exhibition has been carefully designed and installed to accentuate the grandeur of the paintings and foster an intimate experience with each of the artworks.” Text from the AGNSW Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburg Purchased 1953 © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales The Scottish Duke of Argyll, Chief of Clan Campbell, whose hereditary seat is Inverary Castle, commissioned Thomas Gainsborough, one of the most celebrated English portraitists of the 18th century, to paint his likeness. The artist’s talents were sought by the wealthy elite both in London and in the fashionable resort town of Bath, where he established a studio in 1759.

Gainsborough applied dense and feathery brushwork to convey Argyll’s ducal robes, his collar of the Order of Thistle, and the baton of his hereditary office of Master of the King’s Household. The Piazza San Marco, Venice c. 1770-75 Oil on canvas 55.2 x 85.4 cm Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh Accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the Scottish National Gallery, 1978 © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Like his fellow painter Canaletto, Guardi capitalised on the market of tourists eager for topographical views – vedute – of the spectacular urban spaces of Venice. This composition features the Piazza San Marco, which Napoleon would later call ‘the most splendid drawing room in Europe’. On either side, the receding arcades of official buildings, the Procurator Vecchio and Procurator Nuove, lead the eye towards the Basilica of San Marco, its mosaics shimmering in the sunlight. Behind the bellower is a glimpse of the Doge’s Palace.

The scene is enlivened by traders, uniformed government officials, and fashionably dressed tourists – all portrayed through only a few deft strokes of the brush. Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh. Bequest of Lady Murray of Henderland, 1861 © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales At the beginning of the 18th century, Watteau pioneered the fêtes gallant, a type of painting depicting a group of men and women enjoying flirtatious love, music and conversation, generally in a park or a garden setting. His paintings inspired a generation of artists who sought to capture the light-hearted elegance of the period. This painting is one of his few compositions that portray real people: the figure on the left can be identified as Watteau’s friend and fellow artist Nichola Vleugxhels, and the lovelorn bagpipe player on the right is considered a self-portrait of Watteau himself.

Purchased by private treaty from the estate of HMV Showering, 1986 © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Boucher, considered the pre-eminent painter of the French rococo, effectively invented this genre of elegiac, erotic pastoral which found a parallel in the pantomimes devised by his friend Charles-Simon Favart. In these three pastoral scenes set in a luxuriant and entirely unthreatening nature, shepherds engage in a perpetual drama of frustrated courtship, reflecting the polished etiquette and suppressed passions of aristocratic society in pre-revolutionary France. Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at left, John Constable’s The Vale of Dedham c. 1827-28 and at right, Thomas Gainsborough’s River landscape with a view of a distant village c.

1748-50 Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales 145 x 122 cm Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh Purchased with funds from the Cowan Smith Bequest and with the aid of the Art Fund, 1944 © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Constable was born in Suffolk, and he dedicated most of his career to painting the surrounding English countryside with a marked romantic idealism. He was influenced by the grand tradition of European landscape painting, which he learned from artists and dealers he met in London early in his career. This composition, for instance, is indebted broadly to that of Claude Lorrain’s work Hagar and the angel 1646 (National Gallery, London). Constable referred to his own mature masterpiece in al better of June 1828: ‘I have painted a large upright landscape, perhaps my best.’ Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh.

Purchased 1953 © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Although best known for his portraits, Gainsborough consistently painted landscape throughout his long career. Rich in detail and carefully composed, this painting reveals his firsthand knowledge of 17th-century Dutch landscapes. During the 1740s, collectors in London admired and sought out works by such artists of Holland’s Golden Age as Meindert Hobbema and Jacob van Ruisdael. The especially horizontal format of this work suggests that it may have been part of a decorative cycle for a domestic interior, perhaps hanging above a fireplace. Purchased with the aid of AE Anderson in memory of his brother Frank, 1927 © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Corot, whose career spanned more than 50 years, emerged from the classicism of the 1820s to found the ‘school of nature’ that would find its culmination after his death in the art of the impressionists.

This bucolic early work was painted at Ville-d’Avray, a small town west of Paris, where Corot’s parents owned a modest country house with grounds. The painting was retouched around 1850, at least in part by Corot’s friend and fellow artist Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña, who added the red cap of the seated woman as a bold implement to the otherwise cool palette. Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at centre, Sir Henry Raeburn’s Colonel Alastair Ranaldson Macdonell, 15th Chief of Glengarry c. 1812 Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at left, Sir Henry Raeburn’s Colonel Alastair Ranaldson Macdonell, 15th Chief of Glengarry c.

1812 and at centre, William Dyce’s Francesca da Rimini 1837 Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at centre, Sir Henry Raeburn’s Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster, 1st Baronet mid to late 1790s Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at left, William Dyce’s Francesca da Rimini 1837 and at right, Sir Edwin Landseer’s Rent-day in the wilderness 1868 Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Sir Edwin Landseer (England, 1802-73) Rent-day in the wilderness Bequest of Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, 1871 © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Lands became

 famous for his paintings of the Scottish Highlands.

This unusual history painting is based on the heroic exploits of Colonel Donald Murchison, as recounted in Robert Chamber’s Domestic annals of Scotland (1858-60). Murchison, a lawyer turned guerrilla fighter, supported the rebellion to reinstate the Stuart dynasty to the throne of Great Britain. he brazenly defied the government by collecting rents illegally from Scottish tenants to finance local armed resistance. In this painting – commissioned by Murchison’s great-grandson – Landseer conflates several distinct episodes, including the colonel’s daring and notorious ambush of government-appointed agents, escorted by British redcoats, in 1721. Frederic Edwin Church (USA, 1826-1900) Niagara Falls, from the American side 1867 Presented by John Stewart Kennedy, 1887 © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at left, Camille Pissarro’s The Marne at Chennevières c.

1864-65 and at right, Claude Monet’s Poplars on the Epte 1891 Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Installation view of the exhibition The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with at left, Claude Monet’s Poplars on the Epte 1891 and at right, Paul Cézanne’s The big trees c. 1904 Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales In the 1880s, Monet gradually developed a more schematic and decorative approach to landscape, which led to his ‘series’ paintings of the 1890s, beginning with the Haystacks in 1891 and culminating in his water lily paintings. This painting belongs to a series of twenty-three canvases that Monet, the founder of French impressionism and one of the most celebrated artists in Western art history, completed in the late spring and autumn of 1891.

For the series, Monet painted poplar trees on the river Epte, close to where it joins the river Seine, just more than a mile from his home at Giverny. The clear blue sky and sunlit clouds express a fresh atmosphere. Monet painted the scene on the river from his boat, which served as a floating studio. This explains the low vantage point, with the trees towering above, the river bank at eye level, and the vast expanse of water dominating the lower half of the painting. Unlike most of the series paintings which are vertical, the Edinburgh picture’s format is square, emphasising the gentle curve of the bank and the verticality of the slender trees trunks and their reflection in the water. Monet had already started to create these works when municipal authorities decided to cut down the trees for lumber and sell them at auction. In order to preserve his motifs, Monet partnered with a timber merchant, and successfully saved the poplars, allowing him to complete his series for exhibition in 1892. The painting was the first impressionist picture to enter the National Galleries of Scotland’s collection.

It was sold to the Gallery in 1924 by the important Scottish art dealer Alex Reid, who was responsible for introducing impressionism to many British collectors. Degas’ Portrait of Diego Martelli 1879 also passed through his hands (see below). © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales This portrait of the Florentine art critic Diego Martelli, a close friend of Degas and an important champion of impressionism, was painted in Martelli’s Paris apartment. The high viewpoint flattens the composition, throwing the sitter’s legs into sharp perspective. The work’s asymmetry and the cropping of such elements as the discarded slippers reflect Degas’s interest in Japanese prints. The curved picture behind the sofa is a map of Paris: the river Seine is visible, running through coloured segments denoting the city’s new souther neighbourhoods. Presented by Mrs Anne F Kessler, 1958; received after her death, 1983 © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales This painting dates from the last years of Cézanne’s career.

It is one of a series of works executed in the forest around the Bibémus quarry and the Château Noir, areas in which he often painted in his native Aix-en-Provence. The twisting limbs of the tree at left and the dramatic diagonal of the tree at right inject a sense of dynamism into the composition. Cézanne often left his pertaining in seemingly unfinished states, with areas of the primed white canvas showing through; here, they function not only as markers of the painter’s practice but also as patches of reflected sunlight. Presented by Sir Alexander Maitland in memory of his wife Rosalind, 1960 © Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Three Tahitians epitomises the decorative intensity of Gauguin’s late Polynesian works. Painted in the artist’s final years, during his second period in Tahiti, the work is said to depict a silent conversation in which the man appears to be undecided about the choice offered by the two attractive women – the choice between sensuality and piety. Although ambiguous, it has been suggested these two women are respectively symbolic of vice and virtue.

The bare-chested woman, holding a small posy of flowers and wearing a wedding ring, would seem to represent goodness, her gaze directed to the man. While the woman who turns to face the viewer, her sensuous lips in an enigmatic smile, and holds a mango, may be a reference to the biblical figure Eve who tempted Adam with an apple. These two women recur in several other compositions by Gauguin around this time. In the 1880s, the French post-impressionist fled urban civilisation in search of a tropical Garden of Eden, in which he felt his art could flourish. His final two years of life were spent on the remote island of Hivaoa in the tiny village of Atuona.

Art Gallery of New South Wales Art Gallery Road, The Domain Sydney NSW 2000, Australia Open every day 10am – 5pm except Christmas Day and Good Friday Henry Raeburn: Scottish Portrait Painter, Biography (1795) National Gallery of Scotland Henry Raeburn (1756-1823) The Scottish portraitist, Henry Raeburn was one of the best portrait artists of his day, and one of the great contributors to English Figurative Painting . However, unlike many of his contemporaries, he chose to remain in Scotland, rather than seek work in London. First apprenticed to Gilliland, a goldsmith, he was later employed as a miniaturist and appears to have been largely self-taught in the field of painting . Away from the rivalries of London, he developed his own bold and distinctive style of portrait art , as exemplified by one of his greatest portrait paintings , known as The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch "The Skating Minister" (1795, National Gallery of Scotland ), also known as The Skating Minister.

Raeburn went on to paint some of the most influential figures in society, including Sir John Sinclair (c.1794) and Sir Walter Scott (1823, both at the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh). Raeburn painted over 700 portraits: In addition, he was also one of the best miniaturists in Scotland. THE ENGLISH SCHOOL Best Artists of All Time . Artistic Training Raeburn was born in Edinburgh in 1756. Orphaned at a young age, he was raised by his older brother. At the age of 15, he was apprenticed to a Goldsmith, where he learned to craft jewellery and paint tiny drawings on ivory. His drawing was so highly regarded, that he quickly moved on to miniature portrait painting of local patrons. Encouraged by the success of his sales, he started to teach himself oil painting . In 1775, Gilliland was so impressed by his apprentice that he introduced him to the artist David Martin, who was assistant to the famous portraitist Allan Ramsay (171384). Raeburn studied briefly with Martin, copying portraits and painting miniatures.

Around this time he also met a widow of considerable wealth, whom he married within one month of meeting. WHAT IS VISUAL ART? For an explanation of the terminology, see: Art: Definition and Meaning . Rome In 1778 he came to London and consulted Sir Joshua Reynolds (172392) about his painting. Reynolds was England's most influential 18th century English painter who specialised in painting portraits in the 'grand manner'. He was also one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy of Arts in London . Reynolds told Raeburn to go to Rome and pay particular attention to the works of the great High Renaissance draughtsmen like Michelangelo (14751564) and Raphael (14831520), and accordingly to Italy in 1785 he went. But there is no evidence in his work to show that he carried out the rest of Reynolds' advice.

No signs of Michelangelo or the 'grand manner' can be detected anywhere in Raeburn's painting, indeed some historians have suggested that what he studied most in Italy was the portrait by Velazquez of Pope Innocent IV in the Vatican. George Street Edinburgh After two years in Rome, Raeburn and his wife returned and settled in Edinburgh in 1787, opening a studio on George Street, still one of the most fashionable streets in Scotland. Rome however, appears to have had little effect on Raeburn's artistic development. He had already carved out his own style, a style which relied strongly on chiaroscuro for modelling his figures. He maintained this style throughout his career with little change. Early Paintings Raeburn's output was prolific. His earliest portrait was that of George Chalmers in 1776 (Dunfermline Town Council). He made no preliminary drawings, preferring to work directly onto canvas. In contrast to Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88) whose work was characterised by smooth brushstrokes, Raeburn employed more clashing colours and coarse modelling of his figures. To some extent he anticipated the loose brushstroke of the Impressionists.

Some examples of his early portraits include Janet Dundas (c.1790, private collection); David Anderson (c.1790, The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC); Sir John and Lady Clerk of Penicuik (1792, The Beit Collection, Russborough, Co. Wicklow); Miss Eleanor Urquhart (c.1793, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC) and Thomas Reid (1796, National Trust for Scotland, Fyvie Castle). Raeburn appears to have been a lucky sort in life, many of his well to do clients, including Sir Walter Scott and Henry Mackenzie happened to be living in Edinburgh at the time. Most portrait artists had to move to London to find the same sort of clientele. The Skating Minister (1795) This is perhaps Raeburn's best known work, and is a particularly popular image in today's poster art . The oil painting depicts the Minister Robert Walker skating on a frozen lake, against a pale and ominous landscape. The figure is shown in profile, arms crossed in the proper manner for 'genteel rolling'.

The hazy indistinct background is contrasted against the detail of the Ministers skate laces and the fine skating marks he leaves in the ice, which hark back to Raeburns apprentice as a goldsmith. The painting was practically unknown until about 1949, but today it is probably one of Scotland's most famous images, a symbol of the Scottish Enlightenment, a period during the 18th century when Scotland celebrated a number of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. It involved scientists, architects, sociologists, historians, poets and artists. However, in recent years this particular painting has attracted some controversy: notably when a curator from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery suggested that the picture was in fact by the French artist Henri-Pierre Danloux (1753-1809), who was living in Scotland at the time. Raeburn was elected to the Royal Academy in 1815 and in 1822 he was knighted. In 1823 he was appointed His Majesty's Limner for Scotland. He died at Edinburgh in 1823. His paintings can be seen in the best art museums in Scotland and around the world.

Legacy Raeburn has left particularly illuminating record of society in the Scottish capital, in much the same way as did Van Dyck of the Court of Charles I. His best portraits are of Highland chieftains in national costume, old Scottish ladies, judges and other legal characters. And whoever his sitter there is the same penetrating sense of character and the same sure touch. Sir Henry Raeburn's natural place in art is with the likes of Diego Velazquez, Edouard Manet, and above all John Singer Sargent , to whom he was particularly close. In his Portrait of John Home, for instance, in the National Portrait Gallery , his brushwork anticipates Sargent's with extraordinary precision. In his backgrounds, however, 18th century conventions still ruled, which disqualifies many of his portraits from entering the class of a Velazquez or a Manet. But if he had lived fifty years later, when the last traces of 18th century artificiality had vanished, he might have become one of the greatest of naturalistic portrait-painters.  For biographies of other Scottish artists, see: Famous Painters .  For more information painting in Scotland, see: Homepage .

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Question: Which British artist is best known for his painting 'The Reverend Robert Walker Skating On Duddingston Loch'?
Answer: HENRY RAEBURN